LONDON, 07-Dec-2018 — /EPR FOOD & BEVERAGE NEWS/ — The 4th Farming by Satellite Prize, promoting the use of satellite technologies in agriculture, was decided on Wednesday 5th December at EU Space Week in Marseille. The overall winner of €5,000 was team Teagasc from Dublin, Ireland with their idea for FODDERApp, a complete system and mobile app for grass and grazing management.

Second and third prizes were awarded to team TREASURE, a pan-European team and team Space Junk from University of Padova, Italy.

They beat stiff competition from 42 other young people across 17 European countries. Judges selected six teams to take forward to the final ‘live’ judging round. Finalists were from France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK and, for the first time in the competition, Ireland and Finland.

Farming by Satellite Prize is an initiative of the European GNSS Agency (GSA) and the European Environment Agency (EEA). It is sponsored by CLAAS, a leading manufacturer of agricultural engineering equipment. Reviewing the winning entries this year, GSA judge Reinhard Blasi said: “The outcome of this year´s Farming by Satellite Prize once again showed there is no better way for innovation than investing in and rewarding the next generation of farmers. The amount and quality of the entries we received indicate that we have interesting times ahead in the area of smart farming.”

Commenting on the environmental aspect of entries, Hans Dufourmont of EEA added: “At a time when we are facing critical environmental and climate challenges, it is of increasing importance that we continue to encourage this type of strong innovative thinking from the next generation. Copernicus offers all citizens a vast array of data, but we rely on exactly this kind of new thinking shown in the Farming by Satellite competition to challenge and improve on how we are currently using satellite technologies and the data it provides. It is critical, challenging, but also promising.”